Links: Avalon manga, Papercutz blog, and reviews galore

Matt Brady interviews the creators of The Scrapyard Detectives at Newsarama. Produced by The Diversity Foundation, The Scrapyard Detectives is "about kids, mysteries, exploring the nature of diversity and acceptance and personal growth, which sounds kind of awful, but the creators do a better job of selling it as kids’ mysteries in the Encyclopedia Brown/Scooby Doo vein.

Good news for those who enjoy the Avalon YA novels (as our own Esther Keller did last November): Seven Seas is getting ready to publish a manga adaptation based on the stories, and they have a behind-the-scenes page up that explains the steps that go into making it. (Thanks to blogger-friendly Seven Seas editor Adam Arnold for the tip!)

Wondercon is going on this weekend, and it has generated some news items. IDW is publishing a collected edition of The Family Circus, starting with the very first strip; editor Scott Dunbier discusses the new project at Comic Book Resources.

Both my daughters love pokemon to the point that they draw their one and come up with stories about them. If there is something that will stimulate their imagination like that, you can be sure, that as a parent, I will be buying more of the books.

Papercutz, the publisher of the Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, and Classics Illustrated series, has started a new blog, and it looks like their creators will be contributing, which should make for some interesting reading.

In other blogging news, Comics Playground, the all-ages comics podcast, has been quiet for a while, but now they’re back with a new podcast that covers Mouse Guard, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Space Raoul, and more.

Brigid Alverson, the editor of the Good Comics for Kids blog, has been reading comics since she was 4. She has an MFA in printmaking and has worked as a book editor and a newspaper reporter; now she is assistant to the mayor of Melrose, Massachusetts. In addition to editing GC4K, she writes about comics and graphic novels at MangaBlog, SLJTeen, Publishers Weekly Comics World, Comic Book Resources, MTV Geek, and Good E-Reader.com. Brigid is married to a physicist and has two daughters in college, which is why she writes so much. She was a judge for the 2012 Eisner Awards.

About Good Comics For Kids

We are a group of librarians, parents, and writers--and most of us wear at least two of those hats--who started writing about kids' comics in 2008 because, well, nobody else was. We like everything from Literary Graphic Novels to blatantly commercial (but fun!) licensed properties. And we don't lump all ages together; we're smart enough to know that a three-year-old has different abilities and interests than a 13-year-old.

Our goal is to cover kids' comics (for readers from birth to age 16) with both breadth and depth, through a mix of news, reviews, interviews, and previews, and to be both accessible to casual readers and interesting enough for serious fans.